


Days Gone By

by blackestfaery



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, POV Second Person, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-30
Updated: 2014-11-30
Packaged: 2018-02-27 15:03:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2697293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackestfaery/pseuds/blackestfaery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hermione Granger on two truths and a lie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Days Gone By

**Author's Note:**

> DHR Advent 2014. I can't believe I was invited to write again! It never fails to surprise me that people even remember that I used to write for this fandom, so a heartfelt thank you to whoever nominated me.
> 
> This is most definitely a stream of consciousness piece and (warning) written in Second Person POV. My prompt was _artificial tree_ , and believe it or not, I struggled to find something to write. I didn't want something that involved Draco not knowing what an artificial tree was. This was the outcome.
> 
> Lastly, a massive thank you goes to my beta, teenage_hustler, who did her thing and made my tenses understandable. You're priceless, G.

_Truth: it doesn’t take much to remember._

You will always associate winter with Draco Malfoy.

How can you not? He is everywhere you turn in the cooler months: the shivery blast of air that greets you as you pull open the door of your house is just like the tone he had sometimes taken on when remembering anything to do with Lord Voldemort and the War.

Or the fine layer of ice at the front door that you step onto (and inevitably slip on) in the mornings. _Like the colour of his eyes_ , you think, righting yourself with the hold you have on the railing. _Sharp and clear._

You make another mental note to buy ice melt after work and tell yourself you _will_ buy it this time, because it’s just ice, no matter the colour.

***

Everyone is going the same direction as you, and yet it feels like you’re pushing against them. Their pace is slow, due in part to it being Monday (and the depression that day brings is not exclusive to Muggles) but also because of the trees lining the Atrium. Stationed between the fireplaces and easily topping eight feet, their prickly branches take up the remaining space around the sides of the long hallway. 

You brush past one such tree just as a green-tinged flare from a nearby fireplace announces the arrival of yet another Ministry employee. You turn your face away only to see its distorted appearance reflected back at you from a plain silver ornament. Things freeze for a moment before you force yourself to keep walking. The abundance of green and silver is everywhere, locked in a never-ending competition with red and gold. Christmas, everyone else thinks.

But you?

You think of a striped tie arranged in sharp folds over a meticulously pressed white button shirt. 

This time, you keep your eyes forward and trained above the bobbing heads.

***

The sanctuary your office provides is more welcome than usual but it isn’t long before you find yourself thinking of him again. You wonder at your memory and how individual bits of him are what you remember so clearly, but collectively you only get an impression of what Malfoy looks like. Ice blond, tall, with a cool attractiveness that somehow still burns through every part of you.

You know the date but check it anyway. December seventeenth. At least a couple more months before spring comes and you can successfully ignore your memories of Malfoy again.

_Truth: artificial trees make for good team building._

In your final year at Hogwarts, Malfoy and you had spent one long night decorating your Common Room together. Seeing as how you had no parents who remembered you, McGonagall had requested that you bring a touch of home with you over the Christmas break.

You could have easily levitated the many boxes laden with delicate coloured ornaments and twinkling garland up the many stairs to the Head Boy and Head Girl rooms, but it wouldn’t be the same. Just as you did in Christmases past, you carried the boxes tirelessly up the moving Grand Staircase until the last of them found its place with the pile in the corner of the Common Room. 

Malfoy had watched you work from his assumed position; slumped gracefully in an armchair, booted feet turned toward the fire. While you would have rather choked on your own tongue than asked for his help, you were disappointed at his lack of good manners. Considering the move enough activity for one night, you had retired to your private quarters to study and sleep.

***

Your first class didn’t start until 9:30 AM the next day and you’d made plans on waking early to get started on the decorations. As you'd gotten dressed, you'd thought briefly on Malfoy’s apathy last night. The opportunity to coax him out of the silent shell he’d cocooned himself in since returning to Hogwarts had been lost at the time, but today had presented another chance.

You pulled your door open and stopped at the threshold, mouth dropping open. 

The boxes were open, their contents arranged by colour on your desks. You looked closer and laughed. If there had been any doubt who could have done this (and there wasn’t any), the fact that the silver and green decorations were on Malfoy’s desk and the red and gold decorations were on yours gave it away.

You moved to the fireplace and touched the pine bough placed over the mantel. 

_He started without me_ , you thought.

***

Conversation began in a halting fashion that night. You never did mention the opened boxes, but Malfoy noticed the cup of hot chocolate on his desk when he returned from some general meeting with the Head of Slytherin. He never asked for directions but took cues from you. Candles were placed on the coffee table, ribbons threaded through the loops on the ornaments, and Section A connects to Section B connects to Section C and _yes, we have to fluff out the branches._

You really shouldn’t have been, but you were surprised to find that Malfoy had an eye for colour and placement. Twining the ribbon through the Christmas tree’s branches had been trying, but it paled in comparison to how long it took for you (him) to place the ornaments on the tree. You argued over one ornament for so long— _the colour doesn’t match anything on the tree, Granger_ —that you finally gave in and cracked the ball in half. A picture of your happy family of three smiled up at him.

 _This_ will _go on the tree_ , you say around the thick burn in your throat.

***

Near the end of the night, after the silence that followed the photo ball’s placement at the front and centre of the tree, the barely there touch on your hand, and several moments of catching each other’s eyes across the branches, you saw him check one last box for stragglers and pull out a sprig of mistletoe.

He looked up at your prolonged silence, but you turned away before you could see what he had done with it and pressed one hand against your hot cheek.

***

McGonagall stopped in later that week and admired the work you had put in. She congratulated you on job a well done, but you corrected her.

 _It was both of us_ , you said, carefully keeping your gaze from where Malfoy sat at his desk, a sprig of mistletoe masquerading as a paperweight at his elbow.

_We did it together._

_Lie: good people always get a happy ending._

Malfoy’s engagement to one Astoria Greengrass takes up the entire front page of the _Daily Prophet._

It takes you a minute to get over the shock of seeing his face (you were right about his eyes; they never changed) and only a few more to read the article. You process names and lineages and finances with more zeros at the end than you can count before your co-worker pops her head in your office to ask if you saw the news and _Draco Malfoy’s become quite handsome, hasn’t he?_

You nod your agreement and smile softly. You’d known he would be. You had plenty of time to get to know his face that final year—time to study his firming jaw line, the straight blade of his nose, and the sharp intelligence behind his eyes.

Plenty of time to lose a part of your heart to him.

You look at your left hand and indulge in a moment of fancy as you try to imagine what a five karat diamond would look like on your finger. You think sparkly and heavy and _as a Malfoy, you shall not_ and shake your head. 

That life isn’t for you. 

And that’s okay.

You read the article one more time, admiring the square set of his shoulders as the image of him escorting his fiancé into a restaurant loops. You keep the paper at the edge of your desk as you work, composing best wishes to Draco in your head that you will never send.

***

It is late enough that the cleaning staff is working around you before you put your quill down for the day. The last of the rubbish bags are being tied closed, but you call after the man, telling him to wait.

“I don’t need this anymore,” you say, and the cleaner nods, bagging the day’s _Prophet_ and a worn out sprig of mistletoe.

**Author's Note:**

> I never like to write unhappy endings, but the reality is, not all relationships end the way we want them to in fandom and real life. Our first loves don't always end up as our last loves, so we're sometimes left with just the memories. Thank you for reading, and just in case you're wondering: yes, it was one-sided.


End file.
